Definition

Preregistration refers to posting a timestamped outline
of the research questions, hypotheses, method, and analysis plan
for a specific project prior to data collection and/or analysis

Key principle: Distinguish between:

• Confirmatory research (pre-planned)
  
• Exploratory research (data-driven discovery)

The Preregistration Spectrum

graph LR
    A[Simple<br/>Hypotheses & Methods] --> B[Detailed<br/>Analysis Plans] --> C[Registered Reports<br/>Peer Review]
    A --> D[Easy]
    B --> E[Medium]
    C --> F[Difficult]

Preregistrations can vary from simple outlines to comprehensive analysis plans with pre-written code

Problem 1: Publication Bias

• Null results rarely published
• Replication rate: Only 1 in 400 studies
• 80% of tested hypotheses reported as “confirmed” across 4,600 papers
• Cross-linguistic variation underreported

Result: Scientific record biased toward positive findings

Problem 2: Researcher Degrees of Freedom

• Post-hoc acoustic measure selection
• Flexible participant exclusion criteria
• Multiple eye-tracking measures available
• Model specification after seeing data

Consequence: False positives may mislead theory development

Why This Matters for Experimental Linguistics

Recent findings from our field:

• Low replication rates: Similar to psychology’s “replication crisis”
• McGurk effect replication failures: Classic findings not always robust
• Eye-tracking studies: Different measures can yield different conclusions
• Cross-linguistic assumptions: English-based theories don’t always generalize

Evidence: Roettger (2021) documents widespread analytical flexibility in linguistics

Reference: Roettger, T. B. (2021). Preregistration in experimental linguistics:
Applications, challenges, and limitations. Linguistics, 59(5), 1227-1249.

Common Concern 1: “My data collection is unpredictable”

• ✅ Preregister decision trees for contingencies
• ✅ Document changes transparently
• ✅ Example: Children falling asleep during experiment

Common Concern 2: “I need exploratory analyses”

• ✅ Preregistration only constrains confirmatory part
• ✅ Explore freely after confirmatory tests
• ✅ Just label findings appropriately

Common Concern 3: “I’m working with existing corpora”

• ✅ Can preregister analysis of existing data
• ✅ Example: HCRC Map Task Corpus analysis
• ✅ Reduces post-hoc analytical flexibility

Common Concern 4: “Statistical models often fail to converge”

• ✅ Preregister model simplification procedures
• ✅ Define convergence failure handling
• ✅ Plan for data transformation needs

Common Concern 5: “I don’t have concrete predictions yet”

• ✅ Perfectly fine for early-stage research
• ✅ Explore first, then confirm on new data
• ✅ Frame exploratory studies appropriately

Common Concern 6: “My field is observational, not experimental”

• ✅ Preregistration mainly for confirmatory research
• ✅ Much linguistics is exploratory by nature
• ✅ Value different types of inquiry equally

Key insight: Preregistration is flexible and adaptable to linguistic research

What to Include: Key Questions (Roettger, 2021)

1. Data collection: Who, how many, where, when?
2. Inclusion/exclusion: Specific operational criteria
3. Materials: Stimulus selection and norming procedures
   
4. Procedure: Exact experimental protocol
5. Variables: How will constructs be measured?
6. Statistical models: Model formula, random effects structure
7. Inference: What constitutes support for your hypothesis?
8. Contingencies: What if models don’t converge? Missing data?

Goal: Be specific enough that a skeptical reader is convinced you planned ahead

Templates Available

• OSF Preregistration - Comprehensive template
• AsPredicted - 9 simple questions, generates PDF
  
• Secondary Data Analysis - For existing corpora (Weston et al. 2019)
• Replication Studies - Specialized template
• fMRI Preregistration - Neuroimaging specific
• Qualitative Research - For qualitative methods
• Clinical Trials - Medical research specific

🔗 Resource: OSF Templates
Linguistics-specific: Secondary data template

Level 1: Simple Preregistration

Focus on the essentials:

• Main research question
• Primary hypothesis
• Basic methodology
• Key analysis approach

Good for: Beginners, exploratory studies, time constraints

Level 2: Detailed Preregistration

Include specifics:

• Handling missing data
• Multiple testing corrections
• Subgroup analyses
• Decision trees
• Pre-written analysis code

Good for: Confirmatory studies, complex designs

Level 3: Registered Reports

Two-stage process:

1. Stage 1: Submit intro, methods, analysis plan
2. Review: Peer review before data collection
3. In-Principle Acceptance: Publication guaranteed
4. Stage 2: Submit results, get published

Major Platforms

OSF (Open Science Framework) - Most comprehensive - Multiple templates - Integration with project management - Embargos up to 4 years

AsPredicted - Simple and quick - 8 basic questions - Good for beginners - Free to use

Platform Features Comparison

Getting Started: Step by Step

1. Choose your platform (start with AsPredicted for simplicity)
2. Select appropriate template
3. Draft your preregistration (can save as draft)
4. Discuss with advisors/collaborators
5. Finalize and register (becomes timestamped)
6. Conduct your study as planned
7. Report confirmatory vs exploratory findings

Working with Advisors

• Communicate early about preregistration goals
• Share resources if they’re unfamiliar with the process
• Frame as written study design (familiar concept)
• Emphasize benefits for the research quality
• Start simple if they’re hesitant

Timeline Considerations

gantt
    title Preregistration Timeline
    dateFormat  YYYY-MM-DD
    section Planning
    Draft preregistration    :a1, 2025-01-01, 2w
    Advisor review          :a2, after a1, 1w
    Revisions              :a3, after a2, 1w
    section Execution
    Register study         :b1, after a3, 1d
    Data collection       :b2, after b1, 8w
    Analysis              :b3, after b2, 4w

Managing Deviations

When things don’t go as planned:

• Document changes transparently
• Explain reasons for deviations
• Create new registration if major changes needed
• Distinguish planned vs unplanned analyses in results

Remember: Transparency is the goal, not perfect adherence

What If Things Don’t Go ‘As Predicted’?

Standard language for reporting deviations:

• “Contrary to expectations, we found that…”
• “Unexpectedly, we also found that…”
• “In addition to the analyses we pre-registered we also ran…”
• “We encountered an unexpected situation,
  and followed our Standard Operating Procedure”

Key principle: Transparency, not perfection

Interactive Exercise: Issues That Arise

Scenario: You preregistered a study but encountered problems:

• Lower response rate than expected
• Technical problem with one measure
  
• Discovered relevant covariate during analysis
• Found unexpected pattern in data

Discussion: How would you handle each?

Example: Simple AsPredicted Registration

The 9 AsPredicted Questions:

1. Data collection: Have you already collected the data?
2. Hypothesis: What’s the main question/hypothesis?
3. Dependent variable: What are you measuring?
4. Conditions: How many conditions?
5. Analyses: What statistical analysis?
6. Outliers: How will you handle outliers?
7. Sample size: How many observations?
8. Other: Anything else you would like to pre-register?
9. Name: Give a title to this AsPredicted pre-registration

Result: Time-stamped PDF with unique URL for verification

Example: Psycholinguistic Experiment

Research Question: How does prosodic prominence
affect syntactic processing in German?

Hypothesis: Prominent words will show faster integration into syntactic structure

Participants: 40 German native speakers, 18-35 years, no language disorders

Materials: 120 sentences with prominence manipulation, normed for frequency/length

Procedure: Self-paced reading + comprehension questions

Analysis: Linear mixed-effects models with prominence as fixed factor

Exclusions: Accuracy <80% on comprehension, reading times >3 SDs

Example: Corpus Study with Existing Data

Research Question: Does word predictability
affect pronunciation in spontaneous speech?

Data: HCRC Map Task Corpus (Anderson et al., 1991)

Preregistered decisions: - Predictability measure: Trigram probability from Google Books - Acoustic measure: Mean F0 of vowel nucleus - Control variables: Speaker sex, utterance position, word frequency - Exclusions: Function words, words <3 phonemes - Model: Linear mixed-effects: F0 ~ predictability + controls + (1|speaker)

Key insight: Even with existing data, many analytical choices remain

The Bottom Line for Linguists

• Preregistration enhances credibility of psycholinguistic research
• Start simple with basic hypotheses and methods
• Language research is compatible with preregistration principles
• Exploratory linguistics remains valuable (just label it clearly)
• Not all linguistic subfields need preregistration
  (observational research is different)
• SFB 1252 can lead the field in transparent language science
• Individual benefits: Better study design,
  protection from criticism, career advantages
• Your theoretical contributions become more impactful

Roettger’s key insight: “Preregistration is not a panacea for all problems,
but it’s a practice we can integrate into our work flow right away”

Next Steps for SFB 1252

1. Explore platforms (OSF recommended for complex linguistic studies)
2. Try preregistering your next experiment or corpus study
3. Discuss with your project team about adoption
4. Consider joint preregistrations for collaborative studies
5. Share experiences in future RDM workshops
6. Advocate for preregistration in linguistic journals

Immediate action: Choose one upcoming study to preregister

Resources for Further Learning

Essential websites:

• Center for Open Science: cos.io/prereg
• OSF Preregistration: osf.io/prereg
• AsPredicted: aspredicted.org
• Templates: osf.io/zab38
• Registered Reports: cos.io/rr

Reading recommendations:

• The Preregistration Revolution (Nosek et al., 2018)
• Research Preregistration 101 (APS)
• A manifesto for reproducible science (Munafò et al., 2017)

Hands-on Activity: Group Exercise

Small group task (10 minutes):

1. Form groups of 3-4 people
2. Choose a simple research scenario from provided list
3. Draft key preregistration elements using AsPredicted format
4. Present to class (2 minutes per group)

Scenarios provided:

• Prosodic prominence and sentence processing
• Cross-linguistic comparison of word order effects
• Bilingual language switching patterns
• Corpus analysis of discourse markers

Common Questions (Part 1)

• “How do I preregister when I don’t know what acoustic measures to use?”
• “What if my linear mixed-effects models don’t converge?”
• “Can I preregister corpus studies with existing data?”

Common Questions (Part 2)

• “How specific should my exclusion criteria be?”
• “What if children fall asleep during my experiment?”
• “How do I handle cross-linguistic variation I didn’t anticipate?”

Questions & Discussion

What challenges do you see for preregistering linguistic research?

How might preregistration help your current SFB 1252 project?

Who in your research area could be your accountability partner?

Contact: job.schepens@uni-koeln.de | Project S, SFB 1252 Workshop Materials: Available on SFB 1252 OSF project

References

• Roettger, T. B. (2021). Preregistration in experimental linguistics:
  Applications, challenges, and limitations. Linguistics, 59(5), 1227–1249.
• Chambers, C. D. (2013). Registered Reports: A new publishing initiative at Cortex. Cortex, 49(3), 609–610.
• Kathawalla, U.-K., Silverstein, P., & Syed, M. (2021). Easing Into Open Science: A Guide for Graduate Students and Their Advisors. Collabra: Psychology, 7(1), 18684.
• Lakens, D. (2019). The Value of Preregistration for Psychological Science: A Conceptual Analysis. PsyArXiv.
• Munafò, M. R., et al. (2017). A manifesto for reproducible science. Nature Human Behaviour, 1(1), 0021.
• Nosek, B. A., et al. (2018). The preregistration revolution. PNAS, 115(11), 2600–2606.
• Wagenmakers, E.-J., Dutilh, G., & Sarafoglou, A. (2018). The Creativity-Verification Cycle in Psychological Science. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 13(4), 418–427.